Accessible, affordable and regular public transport is not just the sign of a productive modern city; it is also an answer to the fossil fuel crisis.
Public transport reduces the number of cars on our roads, creating a safer urban environment while cutting the need for parking. Productivity increases and emissions fall.
But under this government, everything has been focused on increasing fossil fuel use and car dependency. Now that petrol and diesel prices are sky high, people are really struggling.
Here in Ōtepoti Dunedin, the Otago Regional Council had its public transport wings clipped in 2024 when the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) reduced funding, effectively a cut of $9 million for public transport over three years.
The government put us in a situation that was entirely predictable: high fuel prices combined with cost-of-living pressures.
It is not as if we do not have enough to deal with under this government’s austerity programme, which is forcing job losses, manufacturing closures and high prices for basics.
The thing is, we should not have been caught off-guard. Way back in 2013, the Dunedin City Council (DCC) published the Dunedin City Integrated Transport Strategy.
The current crisis was anticipated: in 2010, the DCC commissioned a Peak Oil Vulnerability Assessment for Dunedin, which identified that personal car travel consumes nearly 75% of the fuel used in the city because of our car dependency.
The strategy highlighted the advantage of our relatively compact urban form, which could easily be serviced with public and active transport.
Palmerston North in the Manawatū-Whanganui region did exactly that, and now has a hugely popular fully electric bus network of 43 E-buses servicing a city of about 90,000 people.
We in Ōtepoti Dunedin face a government that seems unable or unwilling to accept that putting fossil fuels first and increasing car dependency makes us incredibly vulnerable when we rely on importing fossil fuels from parts of the world in conflict.
Not only has this government cut funding for public transport, but it is also pouring billions into new roads and tunnels that will only increase congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, locking in even more car dependency.
Car dependency carries a big financial and personal cost when fuel prices are this high and there are few alternative options. But it does not have to be this way.
Public transport can play an important role in delivering a zerocarbon, equitable Ōtepoti Dunedin. It just needs a Green government that will deliver what’s needed: accessible, affordable and regular public transport, along with regular intercity passenger rail.
